Cover Story: Alec Baldwin Sounds Off

That Trump parody has sealed his status as a New York icon, but Alec Baldwin’s metropolitan roots are deep. In an adaptation from his new memoir, the actor looks back on his Saturday Night Live baptism, his 30 Rock years, and the night of November 8.

The list of men I admire in the movies is quite long. It goes from Lon
Chaney Sr. to Gable to Tracy to Fredric March. It includes Robert
Mitchum, Montgomery Clift, Kirk Douglas, Lon Chaney Jr., Michael
Douglas, Tyrone Power, James Garner, Burt Lancaster, Yves Montand, Colin
Firth, Albert Finney, Robert De Niro, Robert Preston, Paul Newman, Peter
O’Toole, Gregory Peck, Maximilian Schell, and Gary Oldman.

My favorite movie actor is William Holden. On-screen, Holden is
handsome, graceful, charming, and funny. He is tough and resourceful
enough to handle himself in any type of predicament. In a range of films
from Golden Boy to The Bridge on the River Kwai and Sabrina, from Sunset
Boulevard to Stalag 17 and The Wild Bunch, Holden could do it all. I
knew that developing a style like his was not practical. He was an
original and tough to imitate. Plus, the scripts in those days were
tailored for him. Writers today, in most cases, don’t necessarily write
for a particular actor. But what I wouldn’t give to have been born in
1925 or so, to have survived the war and gone on to a career in films in
that golden age of the 1940s and 50s.

Photograph by Mark Seliger.

In small and not so small ways, many young actors seek to latch onto the
persona of a particular star and channel that star in their early work.
Some newcomers try to bring their Brando, Dean, Mitchum, Pacino, De
Niro, or Nicholson to the roles. Women may try, especially when they’re
young, to pull in everything from Monroe to Katharine Hepburn. They may
try to emulate, not only in terms of style but also of career choices,
someone who is a contemporary like Meryl Streep, Cherry Jones, or Cate
Blanchett. Young actors have to come up with something and haven’t had
much experience. So why not steal from the best?

I don’t remember stealing from anyone, at least not in any overt sense.
(Maybe a bit from Joe Maher!) But actors who say they don’t borrow from
others in their early years are liars. I’d see an actor like Edward G.
Robinson snarl a line (“See?”) and at some point I’d think, I’m going
to snarl like Edward G. And Cagney was so cocky—let’s sprinkle a
little of that in there. Bogart was so subtle, so silky, yet so
playful—let’s layer a little of Bogie into this line. Let your face
relax while holding a faint smile, like you just woke up from a nap,
like Mitchum. Make the zingers zing, like Nicholson. Say the line with a
smoldering, quiet tone, then thunder on the last phrase, like Pacino.

I suppose the contemporary actor who I most wanted to emulate was
Pacino. Al’s passion, intensity, and sexuality, all of his now legendary
signatures, took my breath away. The scene in Serpico when John Randolph
presents Serpico with his gold shield—a bullet hole bored into Al’s
face—his indignity, disgust, and rage are barely containable. As
Randolph presses the badge onto Al’s chest, Pacino collapses in tears
that, to this day, go straight through me. I didn’t want to imitate Al.
But I wanted to learn from him. The task was to maintain a reservoir of
emotional truth, pain, and love.

Even though Marlon Brando’s film career seems far in the past now, for
some he remains a sort of gold standard. No doubt, Brando is a
monolithic talent. He reached an undiscovered place in terms of
emotional truth and complexity in film acting. And he developed this
gift at such a young age. But Brando’s difficult relationship with the
business, and with himself, left me wondering when he was acting and
when he was mocking. His contempt for what he viewed as false or
pretentious in Hollywood resonated with me. When he gave his all, the
results were incomparable. But it became clear later in his career that
he had no intention of giving his all in many films. A battered,
fatigued Brando thought that simply showing up was enough. Perhaps
actors approaching Brando’s unmatched talent, and the attendant worship
that comes with that, run the risk of such cynicism, even
self-destruction.

THE TRUMP SKETCHES PROMPTED PEOPLE TO BESEECH ME TO “KEEP GOING” MORE
THAN ANY OTHER PIECE.

Movie stardom amplified Brando’s family issues, industry battles, and
neuroses, ultimately overwhelming him. Pacino always struck me as
different. Pacino seemed focused on balancing his two roles as actor and
star, not easy given that his own accomplishments in the movies are
legendary. He returned to the theater with some regularity, certainly
more than most at his level. Like Nicholson, when it was called for, he
left his vanity at home and just played the role, and beautifully, as in
Angels in America. In films like The Godfather and Scarface, he put the
character’s ugly nature on display. However, in films like Dog Day
Afternoon, Carlito’s Way, and Donnie Brasco, his ability to break your
heart is like no other. I don’t know about you, but I go to the movies
to have my heart broken every now and then, and I’ve always relied on Al
to bring that emotional wallop to his films. Although I studied their
work, I could never have Holden’s career, or Brando’s, or Al’s. Those
careers are of their time. What I did have was Gus Trikonis’s advice
that I simply focus on trying to do my best in whatever film role I
landed.

DINNER AND A SHOW
Baldwin with Jean-Georges Vongerichten at Perry St, the chef’s restaurant.

Photograph by Mark Seliger.

The Funny Business

Whenever anyone told me I was funny, I was reminded of when people in
high school tell someone that he can hit a fastball or shoot a
basketball well. Then he gets to college and everyone is big and fast
and strong. After that, if he turns professional, everyone around him
seems inhuman. They’re the biggest, fastest, and strongest. That’s what
Saturday Night Live was like for me. The worst idea the writers there
came up with was funnier than the best thing I could think up. My
definition of funny changed while working with them. If people think I
can say a line in a way that gets a laugh, I’ll take it. But I’m not
funny. The S.N.L. writers are funny. Tina Fey is funny. Conan O’Brien is
funny. You’re only funny if you can write the material. What I do is
acting.

The first time I hosted S.N.L., in 1990, surrounded by some of the most
talented young comedians in the business, I was scared to death.
Luckily, it occurred to me that, because I did not have an iconic career
in films, because I wasn’t Schwarzenegger or Stallone or someone who
invited a parody of their work, I was better off trying to just be a
member of the company. I would play the soldier, the teacher, the
priest, or the NPR guest in the sketch and do my best to just fit in.
Once I did that, things got a bit easier. The cast wants the host to
succeed, to make the show a good one, so they are very generous and
helpful. The first S.N.L. cast I worked with included Tim Meadows, Kevin
Nealon, Jan Hooks, and Phil Hartman. Over the years, I worked with
several different S.N.L. casts, and some of those performers went on to
great careers in film and television. But none was funnier than Hartman,
who was perhaps the only person to crack me up during the live show.
Phil could channel any kind of character, from smart to dumb to truly
insane. He was a wonderful actor. When I heard about his death, in 1998,
I was stunned and sickened.

Baldwin with Cats cast members at the Neil Simon Theatre.

Photograph by Mark Seliger.

After the third or fourth time I hosted (I’ve been given many chances to
improve), I started to get the hang of it. Along the way, I had the
opportunity to do the show with some of the biggest musical acts in the
business. One year I hosted when Whitney Houston was the musical guest.
After her dress rehearsal, I was introduced to her backstage. “You
truly are the most talented singer out there today,” I said, a bit
star-struck. She paused and said, “I know, baby,” then walked on. In
1993, I hosted the show when Paul McCartney was performing, and I met
the warm and down-to-earth Linda McCartney backstage. We briefly talked
about her animal-rights work, since I had been introduced to the issue
while living with Kim Basinger. Then she asked me, “Have you met
Paul?” “No,” I told her. “Well, go over and talk with him. He’d like
that.”

The idea that I would approach McCartney like he was any other S.N.L.
music act was unimaginable to me, but he was as charming as you’d
expect. No one in show business has had to manage the feelings of his
overwhelmed fans as much as McCartney. I realized then that this is the
greatest thing about the business. One day, you’re on the floor,
moaning, “Aaaaaaahhhhh, look at all the lonely people.” The next, you
get to host your favorite comedy variety show and the musical act is
Paul McCartney.

Hosting several episodes of S.N.L. over the years exposed me to what
good comedy writing is, but it didn’t make me want to run out and star
in a sitcom. I would joke with S.N.L.’s executive producer, Lorne
Michaels, about joining the cast, but it wasn’t until 2005, when I
guest-hosted, that I began to think a TV comedy might fit into my
ever-changing plan. I had played a part on Friends in 2002. I loved
working with Lisa Kudrow and thought Jennifer Aniston was a doll.
However, we began shooting the episode just a day or two after it was
announced that the cast had signed on for Season Nine at a million
dollars per episode for each of the show’s stars, and everyone seemed a
bit distracted. On the set, I’d barely spoken with the producers, who
were naturally focused only on their celebrated ensemble. Later, when I
taped Will & Grace, the set was looser. The executive producers, Max
Mutchnick and David Kohan, seemed as available to their guests as their
stars did. The Will & Grace shoot also enabled me to talk with Megan
Mullally and pick her brains about the realities of shooting a half-hour
sitcom.

I have always been madly in love with Megan Mullally. Some have compared
her to Madeline Kahn, and although I hear some echoes, Megan is such an
original in terms of her timing, her warmth, and her mixture of insanity
and sexiness. Like Megan, Jane Krakowski went on to nail the
self-absorbed, horny femme fatale on 30 Rock. In my mind, there is a
line from Marilyn Monroe to Madeline Kahn to Megan to Jane. Scattered in
between are a lot of talented female comics and actresses who are
scoring in film and TV, of all ethnicities and ages, like Rosie Perez,
Wanda Sykes, Sarah Silverman, and Tig Notaro. But with her high-pitched
voice and loopy delivery, I’ve always found Megan irresistible.

“WHEN I FIRST MET TINA FEY I HAD THE SAME REACTION THAT I’M SURE MANY
MEN AND WOMEN HAVE: I FELL IN LOVE.”

One day on the set, she outlined the sitcom schedule for me. In so many
words, she said that they started on Wednesdays and read the latest
script for a couple of hours, then went home. On Thursdays and Fridays,
they rehearsed for a couple of hours, then left while the writers
re-wrote the script. Mondays, they rehearsed and camera-blocked all day,
and the same on Tuesdays. Tuesday nights, they loaded in the audience
and taped the show. Then they went home and got a big check. This was no
chain gang. The day of the taping, we stumbled our way through a dress
rehearsal and then performed one of the few live Will & Grace episodes
ever produced. Like the S.N.L. cast, Sean Hayes, Eric McCormack, and
Debra Messing were welcoming and patient with me.

Television moves along. On films, you can sit around interminably. You
hope the result is worth it. But you also think about all of the
weddings, family gatherings, and overall moments of your life that you
miss while shooting. Working with the legendary director Jim Burrows,
who oversaw all 194 episodes of Will & Grace, made me think of the
live, four-camera comedy like a mini-play. We were in the theater,
playing to an audience, only we taped it, edited it, and ran it on TV to
a few million people. Funny people like Megan, the schedule, directors
like Burrows—it all started to add up.

When Will & Grace was over, I realized I might as well leave open the
possibility for sitcom work if it came my way.

On the Seventh Day

When I first met Tina Fey—beautiful and brunette, smart and funny, by
turns smug and diffident and completely uninterested in me or anything I
had to say—I had the same reaction that I’m sure many men and women
have: I fell in love. Tina was then the head writer at Saturday Night
Live, and I was hosting that week’s show. The writers and producers were
packed, impossibly, into Lorne’s satellite office overlooking Studio 8H,
where S.N.L. is produced. (This was once Toscanini’s private office,
when he directed the NBC orchestra in 8H. The building has quite a
history.) When Lorne finished giving his notes after the dress
rehearsal, I asked Marci Klein, who coordinated the talent, if Tina was
single. She pointed to a man sitting along the wall. Or maybe he was
standing? This was Jeff Richmond, Tina’s husband. Jeff is diminutive.
Tina describes him as “travel-size.” When I saw him, I thought, What’s
she doing with him? With his spools of curly brown hair and oversize
eyes, Jeff resembles a Margaret Keane painting.

When I ended up working with the two of them years later, on 30 Rock, of
which Tina was writer, producer, and star, I changed that to “What’s he
doing with her?” Jeff, who was the talented composer and music
supervisor on 30 Rock, is as loose and outgoing as Tina is cautious and
dry. “Just remember one thing,” Lorne said. “She’s German.” 30 Rock
was a work in progress in its first season, like many hit shows. If you
watch a series like Will & Grace or The Sopranos in its first season,
the performances are nearly unrecognizable a year later, as the cast
slowly perfects their characterizations. The character of Jack Donaghy
is a guy from a background much like my own. After attending Princeton,
he is drafted by the Dallas Cowboys of the business world, General
Electric. G.E. owned the NBC television network when we started 30 Rock,
so Jack is called upon to apply the expertise that enabled him to
dominate the microwave-programming division to the task of TV
programming. It’s “the Fairfield way,” a reference to the company’s
then Connecticut headquarters. G.E. would “widgetize” comedy.
Turbines, locomotives, comedy shows—it’s all the same. Just apply the
tenets of Six Sigma, Jack Welch’s favorite management tools, and a G.E.
exec will conquer the field.

An ensemble show will thrive only if you have the right ensemble. I know
that sounds obvious, but if you change one element, change any role, you
may not have the same success. I’ve read that the Beatles were offered
the services of any drummer in London to replace Ringo Starr, who was
viewed as the weak link in the band in terms of musicianship. At one
point, Starr was called away to honor a previous contract to perform
with another group. One of London’s top percussionists showed up at the
studio to play with the Beatles, who had to finish recording an album.
“The guy was the greatest drummer in London,” the source said. “And
they didn’t want him. It had to be Ringo. The band said it had to be
those four and no one else.”

30 Rock, of course, isn’t as culturally relevant as the Beatles. But
similarly, I think 30 Rock had to be Tina, me, Jane, Tracy Morgan, and
Jack McBrayer, along with a half-dozen others in smaller roles, or it
would not have flown. The show was a critical hit, but never a ratings
juggernaut. Shows like The Big Bang Theory and Modern Family eclipsed 30
Rock by wide margins in terms of audience. But 30 Rock, while taking
more than its share of awards over the years, also benefited from being
an industry darling. There are shows that people in the business don’t
watch that are nonetheless huge hits. Then there are shows like The
Larry Sanders Show or True Detective, to name just two that the people
who make TV will follow. If I was at an industry event, often some exec
from some media company would come up to me and say, “My son broke his
leg skiing. He was in bed for two weeks. We binged every episode of 30
Rock. Man, that show is funny!” I sometimes wondered if that
contributed to keeping us on the air.

GRIN AND BEAR IT
At the American Museum of Natural History’s Bernard Family Hall of North American Mammals.

Photograph by Mark Seliger.

Jack McBrayer is a great actor. To play that modern-day Jim Nabors type,
but with a twist of Tommy Smothers thrown in, is not easy to do, and I
think Jack killed it. Any goodness or heart that an episode required,
Jack could be relied upon to deliver it. Jane is an award-winning
theater actress who has also had her successes on TV, such as Ally
McBeal, but 30 Rock was the culmination of a lot of years of good work
for Jane. It gave her a reservoir of funny lines and situations, and
like any great performer, Jane made the most of them. Whenever I had
scenes with Jane, I was excited. She’s a wonderful acting partner and
can play anything. Tracy Morgan is . . . Tracy Morgan. The persona of
the playful, devilish man-child had been nailed by Flip Wilson and other
comics, black and white, but many of those were, ultimately, more devil
than child. Tracy often sees the world like a little boy. He maintained
a sweetness and innocence that could astound me, right up to the next
barrage of “motherfuckers” or some sexually graphic imagery that would
come flying out of his mouth. But he’s an original.

Tina had an enormous level of responsibility on 30 Rock. The roles of
writer, producer, and star are a lot to handle. Over the life of the
show, she was honored for all of them. But Tina will tell you she is a
writer at heart. Beyond dressing up for red carpets, hosting awards
shows, or starring in films, Tina, I believe, is most comfortable in a
room full of clever people doing what she does so well. Our characters,
Liz and Jack, never consummated their relationship. There was, in place
of that, a genuine respect, fondness, and, ultimately, love for a
trusted and irreplaceable colleague. For Jack, the only thing better
than good sex was a good hire. Over the years, I had bitched and moaned,
as only actors can, about being tied to a contract for a show that would
never be my own. After Season Five, I wanted to quit. I came back for
Season Six, had a great time, and was ready to sign for five more years.
But a wise decision was made to shoot a tight 13 episodes and go out
head high. As we shot the series finale, on a December night in Lower
Manhattan, my building rush of nostalgia for the show hit its peak.
Freezing my ass off on a boat floating in a marina in Battery Park City,
Jack groped his way toward telling Liz he loved her. “Lemon, there is a
word, a once special word, that has been tragically co-opted by the
romance-industrial complex.” That night was tough. The best job I ever
had, that I will ever have, was over.

Running Gag

As I told Jimmy Kimmel on his show recently, before I did Trump on
S.N.L. I’d never imitated him or had anything to do with him. When Lorne
called me and asked, “Do you want to do this?,” I said, “No, I don’t
want to be Trump on TV!” Because anytime you do any kind of mimicry,
it’s of somebody that you appreciate. I didn’t hate Trump. I just didn’t
want to play him. But Tina and Lorne pushed me, so I finally said yes.

When the stage manager took me to my mark for the first dress rehearsal,
I had no idea what I was going to do. I mean, literally, the moment I
walked out, I just said to myself, “Eyebrow up,” and I tried to stick
my face and my mouth out. For the actual show, when I was in the makeup
room, I put my wig on, and it was like a scene from a mental hospital.
I’m getting the wig on me, and I’m sitting there the whole time going
“Gyna, Gyna, Gyna.” I didn’t think about it—I just did it. Now I
should probably tell people, “I worked on it for months.”

People ask me, “What is your whole gag?’ And I tell them, “You can
suggest the voice or the way a person looks, but to be successful you
have to think of who that person is. To me Trump is someone who is
always searching for a stronger, better word, but he never finds it.
Whenever I play him, I make a long pause to find that word, and then I
just repeat the word I started with: ‘These people are great people.
They’re fantastic people, and I just want to say that working with them
was . . . a fantastic experience.’ ”

As Election Day 2016 approached, a couple of friends, both New York
media execs, asked me if I wanted to join them at celebratory events
they were producing to mark Hillary’s pending victory. The Donald Trump
we had been presenting on Saturday Night Live seemed to delight nearly
everyone in the People’s Republic of Manhattan, so I had many such
invitations. The S.N.L. Trump sketches prompted people to approach me,
thank me, and beseech me to “keep going” more than any other portrayal
or piece I have performed.

TO THE TEETH
At the museum’s Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs.

Photograph by Mark Seliger.

There is no point in dissecting Hillary Clinton’s loss here. Enough
analysis of that exists to last us all 10 lifetimes. I had always
admired Secretary Clinton’s mind, her courage, her self-control under
painfully difficult circumstances, and her tenacity. Trump, of course,
exploited the fact that voters across the country would accept him as
the sharp, no-nonsense, can-do executive he portrays on television. And
he knew that they would not consider the fact that in New York, his
hometown and base of operations, Trump is endured, at best. I will not
go so far as to say he is a punch line, because, in New York, making a
lot of money counts for something, and according to him at least, he has
made a lot of money. But Trump was never an admired New Yorker, a
sought-after speaker or dinner guest. He has never shown an appetite for
the Great Political Imperative that New York politicians must manifest
in order to be a real leader: empathizing with the day-to-day hustle and
bustle of working-class New Yorkers. In fact, he has actually been an
enemy of the working class, refusing to pay many of his contractors and
using undocumented workers on jobsites going back to the 1980s. Trump
has abused power at every station stop of his life. Now he has the most
powerful position in the world. Some people make a lot of money, but it
does not fundamentally change who they are. Others become rich while
choosing to never honestly reflect on the role luck played in their good
fortune, electing to tune out the cries and complaints of those who can
only truly be helped by reforming the system that enriches the Donald
Trumps of this world.